Green and mean

"Stop being hysterical‚" about global warming, an
animated Congressman Steve Pearce tells a young girl as the oceans
rise in an ad that's part of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund's
campaign to unseat anti-environment members of congress. COURTESY
DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE ACTION FUND

Little
girl: This is my congressman, Steve Pearce. (points to man with
head stuck into the ground) He cares so much about my future he's
going to get his head out of the sand and help stop global warming.

Pearce: (pulls his head out with a "thwok" sound) No, I'm
not. Little girl, we don't need to do anything about global
warming.

Little girl: Then why are you melting?

Pearce: I'm not melting. I feel fantastic. It's not hot.

Little girl: (as the sea begins to engulf them) That's because the
sea level is rising around us.

This 60-second animation was
the first salvo fired by the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund in
its battle against New Mexico Congressman Steve Pearce and five
other Republican lawmakers, over their support for carbon-intensive
fossil fuel industries. Typical of the Action Fund's aggressive
strategy, the ad pulls no punches. And Pearce is still in the
Fund's sights: It is now running "Flip of the coin" ads portraying
Pearce and fellow Republican Rep. Heather Wilson as
anti-environment big-oil supporters -- heads and tails of the same
bad penny. Both are vying for the chance to run against Democrat
Tom Udall for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Pete
Domenici this fall. "We've found over the past seven years that
science, law and policy analysis are not enough -- we have to
change the decision-makers. So we're focusing on members of
committees that matter," says Fund director Rodger Schlickeisen,
who hopes to tip the balance in Congress toward "a significant
piece of legislation that redirects our energy policy away from
fossil fuels."

The Fund used similar tactics two years
ago, when it led an attack against the "unbeatable" seven-term
California Congressman Richard Pombo, pro-energy chair of the House
Resources Committee, who was notorious for wanting to privatize
national parks, drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and gut
the Endangered Species Act. Despite an eleventh-hour injection of
more than a million dollars into the campaign and appearances on
his behalf by Vice President Cheney and President Bush, Pombo lost
by more than 13,000 votes to wind-energy consultant Jerry McNerney.

Environmentalists had a new ally in Congress -- and the
Action Fund had won its first David-and-Goliath victory.

The Fund's campaigns are characterized by an early entry into the
races, a small core staff, and engagement on all fronts: research
and polling to uncover candidate weaknesses; voter targeting
through door-to-door canvassing, phone calls and mail; grassroots
organizing with members; and TV, radio and Internet ads. Targeting
vulnerable members of key environmental committees is "the unique
element" of the Fund's strategy, says Bob Duffy, author of
The Green Agenda in American Politics: New Strategies for
the 21st Century.

In the past, says Duffy, the
Action Fund and other enviro groups diluted their potency by not
working together. But since 2006, the Action Fund -- the political
arm of the 60-year-old nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife -- has been
collaborating with the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra
Club, the Clean Water Action Fund and Environment America in
integrated, sophisticated campaigns that increased the groups'
collective clout. In the Pombo campaign, for example, the Fund's
field director and four staffers worked with the other conservation
groups to recruit 300 volunteers, who ran a phone bank and knocked
on 75,000 doors to ensure voter participation.

Not
everyone is enthusiastic about the Fund's tactics. Starting the
campaign early -- in the case of Pearce and Wilson, during the
primary race -- is a questionable strategy, says Lonna Atkeson, a
political science professor at the University of New Mexico.
"They're playing to an electorate that isn't paying attention," she
says.

But Schlickeisen believes that getting out "before
the media clutter and clatter, when people are still listening" is
the best way to "define the candidates."

Schlickeisen
views the campaign "through two lenses: We're always concerned
about the committees, and we know that no matter how good the
legislation is in the House, the Senate can't get past the 60-vote
filibuster. We have to be able to pass that threshold."

Electing pro-conservation folks to Congress could swing the vote
toward cap-and-trade legislation and renewable energy initiatives,
agrees Tony Massaro, political director for the League of
Conservation Voters. The League was able to help defeat nine of 13
legislators with abysmal conservation records in 2006, he notes,
"and for the first time in 32 years, Congress passed new
fuel-economy standards."

This election cycle, the Fund
and its allies are also taking aim at Colorado's Bob Schaffer, the
likely Republican candidate against Democrat Mark Udall for the
Senate seat now held by Wayne Allard, R; and first-term New
Hampshire Republican Sen. John Sununu, who will run against former
Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen for the Senate.

The Fund
spent about $2.5 million in the 2006 election cycle, $1.5 million
on the Pombo race alone. Schlickeisen predicts the Fund will
receive about $3 million this year, from 30,000 individual donors.
Because it accepts no funding from corporations or labor
organizations, the Fund is able to use its money to directly oppose
and support ballot initiatives. (In 2006, five of six takings
initiatives were defeated in the West, partly because of the Fund's
efforts.)

"There are 435 congressional races every two
years, and 33 Senate races," says Schlickeisen. "We don't lower our
head and run at the wall. We choose a handful of key races we think
we can win."

More from Politics

While there was some benefit from the level
of anti-Pombo ads that the Defenders ran in 2006, they take far too
much credit. As an activist in that race, I can cite
mistake after mistake that the Defenders made, generally in playing
fast and loose with the truth in their advertisements.
The result was that they almost made Pombo into a sympathetic
figure, and that takes a lot.

Not
mentioned in this story are the efforts of organizations like the
Clean Water Action Project who organized a voter registration drive
that signed up a significant number of new voters in the 11th CD,
including many Hispanics. That contribution was enough
that the California Director of Clean Water Action, Erich
Pfuehler, then assumed the job as Jerry
McNerney's Chief of Staff.

While I
fully agree with the tactic, the Defenders execution, especially in
the Pombo case, was decidedly amateur.

Anonymous

Jun 02, 2008 01:25 PM

Focusing on the fight(s) we can win
is a good lesson to remember. Thanks for the recap of a couple of
the Action Fund's strategies. Let's help
'em get the Senate.